When we first moved from London, my father kept on his job in the capital. He would make his way each evening from High Holborn to St Pancras and then onwards by steam train, back to family and foodstuff.
He goes his way home through the early winter city, stopping to do brief business with a street vendor at a novelty stall, displaying a colourful variety of plastic frivolities. It’s nearing Christmas. He’ll get something for the youngsters. Some small, near-Christmas knick-knacks. The plastic ducks look good. The vendor demonstrates that they are whistles. Doubly good, then. Heading for the terminus, the train, and the Evening News, and the eventual warm embrace and nibble of a kiss.
Back in the home, my mother is well pleased with the bird presentation. My younger sister holds one and I the other. My older brother is above this brittle birdlife. Angela and I blow into the mouthpieces at the same moment. The bottom beak of each bird drops in slow response, and the quacking comes comically forth. ‘They’ll look nice on the tree,’ Mum advises. Thread is found, along with their new hanging positions. And henceforward, they come out annually to beduck the pineful foliage. The whistling ducks, ornamental now, are whistling ducks no longer. Seen. Not heard.
But there are worse endings at Christmas for a bird.